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duckbill commented on the word damfoolishness
"The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts. He ascribes all his failure to get on in the world, all of his congenital incapacity and damfoolishness, to the machinations of werewolves assembled in Wall Street, or some other such den of infamy. "
August 19, 2011
duckbill commented on the word arsewisp
May 5, 2011
duckbill commented on the word harri bourriquet
A cry to make asses go faster.
April 24, 2011
duckbill commented on the word arsiversy
Upside down; with one's arse uppermost (see arse and topsy turvey).
duckbill commented on the word exiture
duckbill commented on the word theozoology
Theozoologie oder die Kunde von den Sodoms-Äfflingen und dem Götter-Elektron ("Theozoology, or the Account of the Sodomite Apelings and the Divine Electron")
duckbill commented on the word ariosophy
duckbill commented on the word cycloid
Used in the sense of 'manic-depressive' in some literature.
duckbill commented on the word theopscyhe
"I have suggested that one possible concretization we can give to the concept of God as it has been held over the centuries is as God-in-Man (the Theopsyche as I ventured to label it). The Theopsyche is the island of love, rationality, and protectiveness that an advanced society can produce." - Raymond Cattell, Beyondism, page 78
duckbill commented on the user sionnach
Thank you for your comment on robidilardic and fanfreluches. Do you know anything about rataconniculation?
April 23, 2011
duckbill commented on the list rabelais
This list mostly contains words that are not defined in any dictionary, or used by Rabelais in an unusual or obsolete sense.
duckbill commented on the word fig
Faith"swearing by her fig"
duckbill commented on the word cotyledon
The orifice of the menstrual veins and arteries.". . . the cotyledons of her matrix were presently loosed, through which the child sprang up and leaped. . ."
duckbill commented on the word trot
duckbill commented on the word baste
An alternate spelling of basta.
duckbill commented on the word kyles
The game of skittles"Stiff drinkers, brave fellows, and good players at the kyles."
duckbill commented on the word rataconniculation
'Burrowing' (?)"And if any blame them for this their rataconniculation," &c.
duckbill commented on the word fanfreluches
duckbill commented on the word robidilardic
Probably coined from rober (=derober) and lard, with an allusion to the great cat Robilardus (bacon-eater)."Moreover upon these grounds they have foisted in their Robidilardic, or Lapiturolive law." - Rabelais
This probably means conundrums. It appears in Rabelais."Antidoted Fanfreluches"
duckbill commented on the word nax
See wax"In that book the said genealogy was found written all at length, in a chancery hand, not in paper not in parchment, nor in nax, but in the bark of an elm-tree."
duckbill commented on the word perennity
No, it is not a portmanteau. It simply comes from Latin perennis.
duckbill commented on the word frolic
As an adjective:"It was sweet to see them so frolic."
duckbill commented on the word frot
"These two did oftentimes do the two-backed beast together, joyfully rubbing and frotting their bacon 'gainst one another, in so far, that at last she became great with child of a fair son, and went with him unto the eleventh month."
duckbill commented on the word neat
"dried neat's tongues."
duckbill commented on the word gottish
See Gothic"His noble leaves appear / Antic and Gottish."
duckbill commented on the word illustre
Also the opposite of lustre.
April 22, 2011
duckbill commented on the word novitiate
he had been deeply initiated into what is called the world, while I was yet in my novitiate
April 21, 2011
duckbill commented on the word ludicrosity
I prefer ludicrousness. I like to keep my '-osities' at a minimum in writing.
duckbill commented on the word gasometer
Whether French or English, it isn't consonant with Greek principles of word formation.It's just as objectionable in French as in English.
April 20, 2011
Bilby,Again, you assume that common usage alone determines legitimacy. That is not so. Incidentally, "There's no evidence that gasometer is substandard now let alone centuries ago."As early as 1809 we find William Creighton complaining of "that barbarous improper term Gasometer". The Electric Review (1908) speaks of "that incorrect word gasometer". Elsewhere we find it described as a "misnomer" and a "barbarous hybridism".
Bilby,The word 'twitteral' is intended to be humourous. It is formed, not by analogy with other words ending in -al, but merely because it rhymes with literal. That it is intended to be funny only supports my argument.That the word 'gasometer' appears in dictionaries is hardly relevant. Dictionaries merely describe how people use the language, whether standard or substandard, not how they ought to use it. For the latter we consult style guides.
PossibleUnderscore,I anticipated your argument and addressed it in a previous message. I make a distinction between living English and dead English, and explain when Latin and Greek rules of word formation are to be followed, and when they are to be ignored. The loosening of all the rules which have hitherto governed the English language is one reason why English literature is in such a hopeless muddle today.
duckbill commented on the word niveous
Cinabar becomes red by the acid exhalation of sulphur, which otherways presents a pure and niveous white. - Brown.
I don't think so. Words can live on even when the constituent parts of them are dead. For example, although the word tidal is very much alive, the -al suffix is no longer living English. To determine this we need only try to connect it to a word of English derivation, say, the word 'hill'. The result, hillal, is clearly a monstrosity. I would argue that -o-, in the same way, is not part of our living language, even though it occurs (correctly or incorrectly) in many English words; and so any new words which make use of this connecting element ought to follow Greek rules of word formation.
Yarb, Bilby,In forming new words one should always make a distinction between suffixes and root words which, though originally Greek or Latin, are now living English, and those which are dead. As examples of the former, -able and -dis may be given, whilst -ous, -ance, and -o- are examples of the latter. Living suffixes can be used with some freedom to form new words, even if contrary to the original rules of Latin or Greek word formation, or connected to words of Anglo-Saxon derivation, without injury to propriety. Dead affixes, though they still appear in many words (coined when the affixes were still 'living'), would be out of place in any new words. Example: hittance, strikance, keepance. These coinages wouldn't work because -ance is no longer a living English suffix; if it is to be used at all, it should be with Latin words and in strict accordance with the rules of Latin word formation. Similarly, the Greek -o- is not living English.
Bilby,Because it is bad Greek. It is so formed as to outrage that language's principles of word formation. Word-making should be done by those who know how to do it, not by laymen or engineers who know no Latin and less Greek. Literate speakers of English are generally not to be found in workshops and manufactories.
duckbill commented on the user feedback
1.) Wornik should include an etymology section for each word. Etymonline is the best online resource for English etymology.2.) Wordnik should incorporate supplementary dictionaries and glossaries for obscure and rare words. The inclusion of Samuel Johnson's dictionary would also be an improvement.3.) The 'Examples' section should include usages taken from Project Gutenberg. Too often you get examples about the word, usu. from personal websites.
Bilby, Whoever coined the term was either shameless or knew nothing of word formation. The classical connecting vowel -o- is quite out of place at the end of gas. 'Gas metre' should have been used instead of the present monstrosity.This is only one example of a number of illiterate formations ending in 'meter' - speedometer, floodometer, &c.
duckbill commented on the word slabberdegullion
1. A filthy, slobbering person; a sloven, a villain, a fiend, a louse. 2. A worthless person. 3. A drunk, and/or an alcoholic
duckbill commented on the word womb-brother
A brother on the mother's side, but by a different father."Edmund of Haddam (was) womb-brother to King Henry the Sixth."
A barbarism, avoided by those seeking to speak literate English.
duckbill commented on the word deportment
We speak of a person's CARRIAGE in public, and of his DEPORTMENT in private life.
duckbill commented on the word oakum
Cords untwisted and reduced to hemp, with which, mingled with pitch, leaks are stopped.They make their oakum, wherewith they chalk the seams of the ships, of old seer and weather beaten ropes, when they are over spent and grown so rotten as they serve for no other use but to make rotten oakum, which moulders and washes away with ever sea as the ships labour and are tossed. Ral.Some drive old oakum thro’ each seam and rift;Their left hand does the calking-iron guide;The rattling mallet with the right they lift. Dryden.Dr. Johnson
duckbill commented on the word behold
Behold denotes a looking with interest or fixed observation. To see, on the other hand, can be the result of either voluntary or involuntary looking. The flash of lightning is only just seen and disappears.Curiosity prompts us to look, interest causes us to behold, and nature enables us to see.Charles Smith, Synonyms Discriminated
duckbill commented on the word perspicacity
Quickness of sight.
duckbill commented on the word vulcano
Earth calcin’d, flies off into the air; the ashes of burning mountains, in vulcano’s, will be carried to great distances.
April 19, 2011
duckbill commented on the word uxorious
Towards his queen he was nothing uxorious, nor scarce indulgent; but companionable and respective. Bacon.That uxorious king, whose heart, though large,Beguil’d by fair idolatresses, fellTo idols foul. Milton’s Paradise Lost. How would’st thou insult,When I must live uxorious to thy willIn perfect thraldom, how again betray me? Milton.
duckbill commented on the word yeanling
All the yeanlings which were streak’d and pied,Should fall as Jacob’s hire. Shakespeare.
duckbill commented on the word higgledy-piggeldy
A cant word, corrupted from higgle, which denotes any confused mass, as higglers carry a huddle of provisions together.
duckbill commented on the word helminthic
duckbill commented on the word gemelliparous
From gemelli and pario, Latin.
duckbill commented on the word Gaol
A prison; a place of confinement. It is always pronounced and too often written jail, and sometimes goal.
duckbill commented on the word daggersdrawing
Mentioned in Dr. Johnson's dictionary:Dággersdrawing. n.s. (dagger and draw.) The act of drawing daggers; approach to open violence.They always are at daggersdrawing,And one another clapperclawing. Hudibras, p. ii. cant. 2.I have heard of a quarrel in a tavern, where all where at daggersdrawing, ’till one desired to know the subject of the quarrel. Swift.
duckbill commented on the word daffodowndilly
Daffodowndilly. This plant has a lily-flower, consisting of one leaf, which is bell-shaped, and cut into six segments, which encircle its middle like a crown; but the empalement, which commonly rises out of a membranous vagina, turns to an oblong or roundish fruit, which is triangular, and gapes in three parts; is divided into three cells, and full of roundish seeds. Miller.Strew me the green ground with daffodowndillies,And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lilies. Spenser.Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,To strew the laureate herse where Lycid lies. Milton.
duckbill commented on the word dad
The child's way of expressing father. It is remarkable, that, in all parts of the world, the word for father, as first taught to children, is compounded of a and t, or the kindred letter d differently placed; as tad, Welsh; ἄττα, Greek; atta, Gothick; tata, Latin. Mammas atque tatas habet Afra, Mart.] Father. I was never so bethumpt with words,Since first I call’d my brother’s father dad. Shakesp. K. John.His loving mother left him to my care;Fine child, as like his dad as he could stare! Gay.(Johnson's Dictionary)
duckbill commented on the word outdacious
duckbill commented on the word typosquatters
The word is an unauthorised barbarism.
duckbill commented on the word hircine
"The landlady saw, calmly put down her work, and coining up, pulled a hircine man or two hither, and pushed a hircine man or two thither, with the impassive countenance of a housewife moving her furniture." Cloister and Hearth, ch. xxiv.
duckbill commented on the word saxondom
Occurs in Carlye's Heroes and Hero-Worship.
duckbill commented on the word gout
Yarb,It occurs as a verb in William Hope Hodgson's novel, The Boats of the "Glen Carrig".
duckbill commented on the word daughterling
"What am I to do with this . . . daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature." Bronte, Villette, chapter xxv.
duckbill commented on the word europid
Used by John Baker (1974)
duckbill commented on the word osteuropid
Literally, 'east european'. It occurs in some anthropological literature.
duckbill commented on the word raceology
Similar to ethnology, this word was used by William Shockley.
A fake word that hardly merits an entry
duckbill commented on the word paludious
"The lions in Mesopotamia . . are destroyed by gnats; their importunity being such in those paludious places, that the lions by rubbing their eyes grow blind, and so are drowned."—Gauden, Tears of the Church, p. 60.
duckbill commented on the word palaver
Very often used with a subaudition of humbug.
duckbill commented on the word palabra
"To conquer or die is no theatrical palabra in these circumstances, but a practical truth and necessity." - Carlyle
duckbill commented on the word palaeoethnology
A rare word meaning the study of ancient races:"It is of course of great importance to the students of palaeoethnology and archaeology . . ."
duckbill commented on the word paintingness
Means picturesqueness:"One cannot enough praise the expression and paintingness of the style." (1801)
duckbill commented on the word owly
"Leave a twinkling eye to owlie sights"
duckbill commented on the word opportuneful
Occurs in Thomas Middleton:"If we let slip this opportuneful hour"Take leave of fortune."
duckbill commented on the word otomy
Means skeleton. "I hear she's grown a mere otomy." - Swift
duckbill commented on the word amiddleward
Towards or at the middle of. Occurs in Arabian Nights.
duckbill commented on the word apposite
Charles John Smith, in his book Synonyms Discriminated, makes a useful distinction between apposite and relevant:"Apposite expresses a quality, relevant a force. A remark is apposite which harmonizes with the case under consideration. An observation is relevant which helps the main question to a decision. . . . The apposite elucidates, the relevant promotes discussion. The apposite is a proposition; the relevant either an argument, or something which links itself to an argument. Apposite remarks are commonly made in general conversation by persons not taking a main part in the discussion, but throwing in pertinent sayings as listeners. The relevant owes its force solely to its argumentative appropriateness; the apposite is also timely, and often tells with peculiar effect upon the conjuncture at which it is introduced.
duckbill commented on the word provaunt
Provisions. Provant is a verb meaning to supply with provender or provisions.
duckbill commented on the word otiose
Otious (from Latin otium, ease or rest) is an alternate spelling.An important shade of meaning is without painstaking:"(Jesus Christ would warn his listeners) against the otiose attention of curiosity or mere intellectual interest, and would fix upon their minds a sense of their moral responsibility for the effects produced by what they heard."Paley speaks of "otious assent".Dean Alford speaks of an "otiose and unprofitable way of keeping the Sabbath".
duckbill commented on the word otious
A rare spelling of a rare word. See A Supplementary English Glossary by Thomas Lewis: "OTIOUS, leisurely. Otioise is sometimes used, though Latin does not give the word, and Roman only cites Paley for it."
duckbill commented on the word sadsack
Presumably from vulgar “sad sack of sh-t”; Cartoonist Sgt. George Baker said he took from a “longer phrase, of a derogatory nature”. The term originally referred to a well-meaning but inept soldier.
April 18, 2011
duckbill commented on the word jorum
"(he gave the lad) a stiff jorum of the rum." - William Hope Hodgson
Used as a verb by William Hope Hodgson: "the giant cuttle fish . . . slid back into the deep water, . . . gouting blood."
duckbill commented on the word oculate
March 7, 2011
duckbill commented on the word matitudinal
duckbill commented on the word dolor
"I spend my doleful days in dumps and dolors."
March 1, 2011
duckbill commented on the word incurvation
"showing ... the bloom along the incurvation of her spine"
duckbill commented on the word raven
"The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me than Dr. Johnson had."Nobakov, Lolita
duckbill commented on the word coruscate
duckbill commented on the word diaphanous
"I remember once handling an automatic belonging to a fellow student, in the days . . . when I toyed with the idea of enjoying his little sister, a most diaphanous nymphet with a black hair bow, and then shooting myself."Nabokov, Lolita, page 29
duckbill commented on the word girleen
"After all, Dante fell madly in love with his Beatrice when she was nine, a sparkling girleen, painted and lovely, and bejeweled, in a crimson frock, and this was in 1274, in Florence, at a private feast in the merry month of May."- Nabokov, Lolita (page 21)
duckbill commented on the word peritoneum
"Here is Virgil ... who probably preferred a lad's peritonium."- Nabokov
duckbill commented on the word manqué
"At first, I planned to take a degree in psychiatry as many manqué talents do; but I was even more manqué than that; a peculiar exhaustion, I am so oppressed, doctor, set in; and I switched to English literature, where so many frustrated poets end as pipe-smoking teachers in tweeds."Nabokov, Lolita
duckbill commented on the word mimosa
"One night, she managed to deceive the vicious vigilance of her family. In a nervous and slender-leaved mimosa grove at the back of their villa we found a perch on the ruins of a low stone wall."- Nabokov, Lolita
duckbill commented on the word fulgent
"But still the magic volume holdsThe Raptur'd eye in realms apartAnd fulgent sorcery enfoldsThe willing mind and eager heart."- H. P. Lovecraft
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ruzuzu commented on the user duckbill
Thank you for the citations and comments (I especially like the quotations from Carlyle). I hope you are having fun here--welcome to Wordnik!
bilby commented on the user duckbill
There is an etymology section. It's at the bottom of each word (not comment) page. See for example window and scroll down to:American Heritage Dictionary (1)1. Middle English, from Old Norse vindauga : vindr, air, wind; see wē- in Indo-European roots + auga, eye; see okw- in Indo-European roots.
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